


Handling a Caravan Holiday

by snuffleupagus



Category: Top Gear (UK) RPF
Genre: Episode Related, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-30
Updated: 2012-12-02
Packaged: 2017-11-19 21:13:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/577727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snuffleupagus/pseuds/snuffleupagus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set entirely with 08x06 - the caravan holiday challenge. Jeremy cannot contain his feelings for James's hands. He doesn't know when these feelings started, but those fingers are all he can think about. </p>
<p>Special thank you to Anna for being amazingly helpful!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The warm slide of skin against skin. The imagined electricity running from one body into another. The shiver down his spine as fingertips ghost over his palm. 

The slight brush of fingertips should not mean this much.

James has gotten better with what they jokingly refer to as ‘man contact,’ but Jeremy realises it’s only because they aren’t strangers anymore. They’ve been friends for almost four years now – their trio has meshed together into one entity – one of their names cannot be mentioned without the other two in tow somewhere in the next word, sentence, or paragraph. 

They begin as simple, innocent touches – an arm wrapped around shoulders, a pat on the back, or the slide of fingers as a pen is passed between them during a meeting. But for Jeremy those slight seconds mean something – the barriers between them are broken and he can get away with touching the person he wants the most. 

He’s aware it makes him seem like a sentimental woman – mooning over the slightest touches like a love-sick teenager with their first real crush, but that’s almost how he feels. These feelings are still brand new for him. He’s never had a longing for a colleague before, most certainly never a male colleague, and he hasn’t felt this pang of lust – or is it love? – in his chest in decades. 

It begins when a teenage-like scuffle almost breaks out – a physical tussle over who will strap the extended door mirrors on the Kia. After Hammond’s attempt fails, James attempts to take over – he’s the only one of them that will use logic and reason instead of _powerrrrr_ or manhandling the thing until it either breaks or cooperates. 

Jeremy doesn’t see the opportunity presented to him at first, just automatically knows that James will be just as pedantic with this as he is with everything and they’ll be standing here until the snow falls before they get one of these bloody door mirrors on the car. 

All he can think of is that he needs to get the wing mirror out of James’s hands so he can strap it onto the Kia and they can finally commence with this blasted trip to Dorset. But then as he’s trying to help James put the blasted wing mirror on correctly, their fingers brush and Jeremy feels the rush of warmth from James’s fingers into his own – and then that’s all he can suddenly concentrate on: how close James is to him, how their fingers are almost tangling together while trying to attach this stupid fucking wing mirror on this stupid fucking Kia, how Hammond is suddenly butting into their duo and trying to help them again when the mirror suddenly decides to cooperate, and how he longs to feel the warmth of James pressed against him once again. 

He finishes attaching the straps and hopes that the bloody thing falls off within two minutes so they’re forced to try it again. Perhaps he can feel that electricity from James’s fingers flow through him once again. 

Jeremy hasn’t planned on doing anything while caravanning – the three of them are going to be in close enough quarters as it is, he can’t risk indulging himself and possibly scaring away not only one of his best mates, but the man he loves. But after three-and-a-half hours in the Kia, being so close to James that he feel the heat radiating off of his body and can smell the American hard gums he’s been eating almost the entire time, something inside him snaps and he knows he must touch the man next to him, some how, some way. 

It’s the oldest trick in the book. He’s used it countless times, especially when he was younger, trying to impress whatever girl he happened to be driving home after he wined and dined them. It’s a simple enough move that no one ever expects it, but this time, he’s not driving, not on the right side of the car to attempt it. But how hard can it be? 

He thinks of a quick excuse in case his reasons are transparent – he’ll deflect the blame on James himself. Or he’ll blame the damn Kia and its lack of space. Or blame Hammond somehow. Anything to put the blame on anyone but himself. 

He spreads his legs using the minutest motions he’s ever used, his right knee hovering closer and closer to the gear knob. The realisation hits him – this is his excuse – he can’t help that he has such long limbs and that the trip is taking so long that he needs to stretch them. He’s sure even Hammond in the back seat will begin complaining about the lack of legroom soon enough to corroborate his alibi. 

Phase two: he places his hands on each of his thighs as his right knee gets closer and closer to the gear knob. He shifts in his seat, making sure he looks as casual as possible – like he hasn’t been planning this in his head for the last ten miles.

He feels like he’s sixteen again, wanting to fake a yawn and then strategically place his arm around James’s shoulders – but there are cameras everywhere in this car, Hammond in the backseat checking to see if TG’s all right every five minutes, and they are not teenagers on a date: they are middle-aged motoring presenters attempting to film a television show.

Jeremy can feel the warmth of the gear knob along the back of his fingers, can feel the heat of James’s body so very close to him, and wants nothing more than to reach out to him. Instead, he continues on, waiting as patiently as the most impatient man in the world can, and pretends to look at the map resting in his lap. 

It doesn’t take long before James has to switch gear and puts Jeremy’s plan into action. Their fingers interlock for the briefest of moments as James puts the Kia into fourth gear, and Jeremy tries to hide the smile that’s threatening to creep across his face as the warmth of James’s hand creeps in through his fingers, up his arm, and into his heart.

James’s hands always surprise him. He can easily imagine them dirtied with oil and grease while working on one of his motorbikes. Nimble, callused fingers knowing exactly which part does what, which ones need to be replaced, deftly using a spanner before putting it back in its correct spot in the toolbox. 

But then he can just as easily see them cascading over the keys of the piano the man has in his tumble-down house. Jeremy can almost hear Maple Leaf Rag in his head as he sees those long fingers while music floats into the air. He hasn’t heard James play much – only when they’ve been pissed and he and Hammond bugged the man until he played them something. But he still thinks those fingers can work musical magic.

Jeremy wracks his writer’s mind for the correct metaphor or anecdote on how he feels. He could compare it to the first time he heard the roar of the Veyron’s 16-cylinder engine, that euphoria of sitting in the back of the convertible people carrier that they had created, or that slight buzz of adrenaline of doing something wrong when it feels oh-so right. But he can’t compare it to anything – his mind blanks and all he can focus on is the slight contact that’s been made. 

It ends as quickly as it started – James throwing him a questioning look before Jeremy automatically rolls out the next stage of the plan – denial.

“You held my hand there,” he accuses, placing the blame on James himself. 

“No, you put your hand next to the gear stick- I’ve got to change gear!” James fires back.

His pre-planned excuses roll off of his tongue automatically, “There’s nowhere else –”

Hammond cuts them both off, “Stop fighting in the front – we’ve got a long way to go.”


	2. Chapter 2

Everything begins to crumble before Jeremy’s eyes. TG gets sick, which then leads to James crashing the caravan. Time after that catastrophic moment seems to slow down and Jeremy begins to rethink things. 

The anger radiating off of James fills the entire car, and instead of wanting to be closer to him, Jeremy begins to minutely move as far away from him as he possibly can within the confinement of the car, crossing his arms and looking out of the window – not wanting to make any contact with James at all, planned or accidental. There’s a faint glimmer of hope when James smiles and tells them they’ve held up a horsebox – gleefully he switches the message to ‘serves you right’ flashing from the caravan’s rear window. 

He watches as James’s hands seem to seamlessly slide around the wheel as they make a right turn. How his fingertips drum a stream of staccato notes against the wheel to the tune that must run through his mind. How his fingers curve over the gear knob almost perfectly as he changes gear, despite the Kia refusing to go more than 30 miles an hour. How James uses his hands to gesture something as he talks – his exaggerations are not as ridiculous as Jeremy’s are when he gets going on a subject, but he still manipulates his hands in a way that makes Jeremy smile. 

The mood seems to lighten with their laughter until Captain Sense of Direction takes the wrong turn and they find themselves stuck without a place to turn around.

“Spot a little farm gate or something and I’ll reverse it in and flip it around,” James says flippantly.

Jeremy winces not at the prospect that turning a caravan around could never be that easy, but at the way James says the words. His brain automatically thinks of James flipping him around in a farm gate, putting him in another position with those useful hands of his, taking him from behind until they’re both moaning. He doesn’t know what makes him think automatically of having sex with James, as it’s never crossed his mind before and that scares the hell out of him, but it ends up happening, and he has to squeeze his eyes shut and think of unpleasant things before he can open them again.

For Jeremy, he can’t tell if things after that get worse or better. Worse, because they then get a puncture. Or better because then he has to help James fix the blasted Kia. And by helping James, he gets out the tool kit, held steadily by both his and James’s hands, and then is brushed away – the least practical man in the world fixing the puncture on a Kia? They would be stuck for days. 

Once the tyre is replaced, Jeremy feels as if he needs a cold shower. He cannot possibly explain why just the sight of the spaniel-haired man using those clever fingers of his to replace the tyre on a compact Kia can have such an effect on him – hell, he still doesn’t understand when these feelings seemed to crop up, but he’s thankful for the map in his lap and Hammond bickering about something – he’s able to calm himself down more easily than he expected while James’s fingers are curved around the steering wheel, taunting him with every second that passes. 

When they finally arrive at the damned caravan site, James, still irritated, kicks them out of the car in order to park nice and easily without any distractions in the forms of an oaf, a hamster, and a dog to mess him up.

Jeremy’s supposed to be spending the next scenes they shoot setting the scene for the viewers with Hammond, joking about how horrible the accommodations are, the type of people that go caravanning, and anything else they can drum up some humour from. But he can’t think of anything other than James’s fingers. As soon as Hammond is dragged off by his elderly fan, he takes the opportunity to be able to head back to their caravan and clear his head a bit on the way. It’s going to make for an awkward holiday if every single time he sees James’s hands he thinks of what those fingers could do to him. 

Those fingers could make quick history of all of their clothing; warm fingertips could skitter down his side as his entire body shivers against the touch. Those long, skilled fingers could wrap around his cock, pumping in an arrhythmic fashion, slowly bringing him to the brink before they stop completely, and then before they wrap around the base of his cock and give a firm squeeze. Those fingers could work around to the back of his body, spit-slick, and open him up to absolute pleasure. Those fingers could make him come without even trying. 

Jeremy needs the brisk walk across the site in order to calm himself down. But then he’s told that James is about to back into the opposite caravan’s canopy and Jeremy’s needed to break up the action, and all thoughts fly out of his head. 

He sees the destruction of the ‘neighbour’ caravan before him and he knows exactly what’s needed – a scene of them faffing about trying to put it back together. It’ll make for good entertainment – the duo of logic and the least practical man trying to fix an awning? Comedic gold if he ever saw it. 

He doesn’t think about it until it happens – putting this fucking awning back together as a duo without breaking anything further – that their hands brush: a minuscule amount of skin sliding against each other, that Jeremy almost jumps out of his skin from the unexpected contact. 

It’s when they’re trying to seat the ceiling poles back into place that they have to stand so close to one another that they’re almost swimming in the exchanged body heat – their sides almost pressed flush together as their hands shimmy across the air-cooled metal. The combination of the cold steel pressing along his palms and the heat of James’s body so close to him drives Jeremy to the brink of insanity. He tries desperately to calm himself down, because with the angle that the camera is staring at them, the entire world will know how he’s feeling. 

He watches James as he connects two pieces back together with a bright clicking noise – deft, nimble fingers making easy work of the mess before them. Jeremy is useless at this sort of thing and would rather just sit back and watch James do all of the work – watch those dexterous fingers work their magic of whatever James puts his mind to. 

There are so many things that James does with those brilliant hands of his that Jeremy underestimates. He wonders how long he can go about watching James before he’s found out. Before he finally snaps and takes those hands into his own, before he tackles James and does everything he wants to do to those hands, before James curls those fingers into perfect fists and punches him in the face, before pushing him away entirely. 

James seats the final pole, “That’ll do.”


End file.
